Calories tend to be the main focus of most dieters. These individuals worry about eating too many calories and struggling to burn them off. Despite the ubiquitous agreement on the importance of calories, there’s still a lot to learn about them. One way to better understand calories and how they affect your weight is by using a calorie tracker. This article will help you better understand the correlation between calories and nutrition and why using a calorie tracker is important.
Why Are Calories Important to Your Diet?
Calories are considered units of energy that come from the food you eat. To maintain your weight, you need to burn the same amount of calories you consume each day. In this way, your food gives you the energy to complete your daily required tasks, but you will not gain weight. However, this isn’t always the case. When you take in too much energy or energy from macronutrients like fats or carbohydrates, then your body stores it. This is how people gain weight.
Tracking calories helps. By making sure you take in fewer calories than those you burn, you can start to lose weight.
Nutrients Are Also Important
Calories aren’t the final word in dieting. While they provide a useful guide for discovering which foods might be less healthy than others, people also need to focus on the nutrients that food provides.
For example, most people have seen photos that show portions of food within the same calorie range. For 50 calories, you could eat one piece of chocolate, half a cup of yogurt, or a whole plate of lettuce. Simply counting calories isn’t enough because your body needs nutrients from these foods. Healthier dieters focus on the foods they eat and choose a variety of items to reach their calorie counts.
By checking the nutrients and portion size on a food label to ensure it provides quality levels of protein and other nutrients (along with the calorie count), you can make sure your body gets what it needs to stay healthy and help you lose weight.
Tracking Calories and Nutrients Is Easier With Technology
Between vitamins, protein, calories, and portion size, it can be hard to keep track of everything you should be eating. A protein bar that seems to fit in with your diet might have more sugar than you expected or could actually be two serving sizes.
Fortunately, technology has made it easier for people to learn about the food they eat. Dieting apps like Lifesum take a whole body approach to getting fit and focus on lifestyle factors like emotional support during your weight loss journey. With calorie counting, nutrient intake, and wellness all in one place, it’s easy to learn what you should and shouldn’t eat for greater success. While calories are the lifeblood of any diet plan, they’re not the only factor. Lifestyle, diet, nutrients, and personal factors all contribute to a person’s diet success. By focusing on balance and long-term improvements to your health, you can turn calories into an ally to help your weight instead of a number that limits what you eat.
